Page 15 of Wings of Ashes (Wings of Ashes #1)

CHAPTER

L iquid dripped down Nix’s face, catching on her eyelashes and nose as she bit back a scream. That damn incubus.

She was going to…well, there wasn’t much someone like her—no supernatural strength, speed, or magical abilities—could do. She could hit him and break her hand. Might be worth it.

I hate him , she thought as her skin heated. I hate all of the alphas in this school .

“Watch it turn color,” Bael confidently told Mara and Ryker, like he was proud of his little experiment. “An enchantress caught in the act.”

The potion began hissing and steaming onto Nix’s skin. “Fuck,” Nix gritted in pain as it bubbled over her hair and her forehead. He really couldn’t have poured it onto her hand or something?

“Uh, Professor?” Mara called out for his attention.

Footsteps neared as Nix bit her tongue and refused to release any sounds of pain as she glared at Bael.

“Ha!” Bael pointed at her. “See? She has been using magical abilities—”

“It’s red,” Mara cut him off. “Professor Bowen said it would turn—”

“Blue,” Ryker snapped and stood from his stool. He stepped close to Nix, his hulking body casting her in shadows as he leaned down to scan her pained expression. “Hurting you?” he asked in a thundering growl about the potion.

Was it hurting her? Uh, it was turning red and sizzling on her skin.

“Step back,” Professor Bowen’s voice just barely made it to Nix’s ears around the cage of Ryker’s large, warm presence.

Suddenly, Ryker was gone, and Professor Bowen bent down to look at her.

“What does red mean?” Bael asked.

“Blue is for an active spell; red is for an unwell.”

Bael scoffed. “What the fuck kinda poetry is that, Teach?”

“Red means she has been bespelled. Victim to some kind of—” Professor Bowen cut himself off. “You said it is hurting you?” he asked Nix.

She scowled at Bael as she replied, “It…stings, yeah.”

Professor Bowen turned from Nix as he addressed the entire class, “You are all dismissed early. I will clean up your stations and note your progress. Exit the classroom immediately, and I will see you all tomorrow.”

The professor turned back to Nix. “My dear, this is very serious. For this potion to cause you any physical pain means that whatever is bespelling you is actively—”

“What the fuck is happening right now?” Bael asked, stepping beside the professor to be closer to Nix. Probably wanted a front row seat to her pain.

“Mr. Obsidius, I asked for the class to leave,” Professor Bowen said. “That does include you. Please grant us privacy.”

Not aware of the definition of the word “privacy,” Bael asked, “What is she bespelled with?”

“That’s really none of your business, Baelfire,” Professor Bowen replied, using Bael’s full name. “Now leave the classroom. You too, Mr. Infernox.”

Ryker hesitated to leave too? Hadn’t they done enough?

“But—” Bael started.

“Leave!” Nix yelled at him, still dripping with the red, sizzling potion.

Bael flinched and stumbled backward a step. He frowned as his hand jerked up and rubbed over a section of his chest as if she had hurt him .

I hate him .

Bael and Ryker reluctantly and begrudgingly left Professor Bowen and Nix alone.

“Come with me,” Professor Bowen requested. He guided her to where his desk sat at the front of the classroom, in front of a bookshelf of random vials of varying colors.

“This is very serious, Miss Oadess,” he told her. “The potion’s red color suggests that someone has hexed you. Have you been feeling odd or any differently than normal?”

She was not about to tell him how she died a fiery death six years in the future and woke up back in her younger body a few days ago. “Um…”

“Is there anyone who might have done this to you? Someone who does not like you?”

Nix knew what spell the potion was picking up on. “Actually, professor, it’s okay. I know what the magic is. It’s an illusion potion. I’ve been taking it for years.”

Professor Bowen’s nose scrunched up as he repeated, “Illusion?”

Nix bit her lip, wondering if she should tell him.

“You do not have to tell me anything you do not wish to. But, this bewitchment seems to be harming you; otherwise, the potion would not have caused you any physical sensation.”

Harming her? Nix pursed her lips and replied slowly, “It is just a visage enchantment spell. I… Well, I am adopted and not one of the cygni by birth, but I was raised in their community.”

She explained, “To lessen some of the, um, negative attention I received over my different appearance, my adoptive parents paid for a potion to be concocted for me to appear like a cygnus shifter. To help me fit in and make friends more easily.”

Professor Bowen’s frown lines deepened. “You have been taking this potion for a long time?”

“Over ten years.”

Professor Bowen reeled back from her, shock coating his features. “Ten years ?”

“Yes.”

“If you are not a cygnus, may I ask…what winged shifter are you?”

A question Nix did not have an answer for. “I don’t actually know. My parents died when I was young, and I do not have that many memories from childhood before being adopted. I swear, I am a winged shifter, though. I don’t want to be kicked out of the academy—”

“Do not worry about that. I will not tell anyone about this.” Professor Bowen rubbed a palm over his chin. “Would you be able to bring me a sample of the illusion potion you have been taking? I would like to make sure it contains no maladies.”

“They wouldn’t give me something that could hurt me,” Nix told him.

“Yes. Right. Just to be sure. Maybe the developer of the potion forgot an ingredient; I would just like to check it.”

“Okay. I, uh, I will ask for a dose today.”

“You do not keep it yourself?” Professor Bowen asked.

“No, my sister, er, friend keeps vials of it in her dorm room. She has a minifridge to store it, and my room only has one outlet.”

He frowned again. “ One outlet?”

“The nicest dorms are given to those with the most powerful abilities, sir. My abilities are…lacking.”

Professor Bowen’s jaw clenched at that.

“Bowen,” a low, gravelly male voice called from the doorway as Nix’s heart-wrenchingly gorgeous gargoyle history teacher, Professor Thierry, strode inside the classroom. “You dismissed class early?”

The silvery sheen over Professor Thierry’s skin shone as he abruptly paused his steps when he saw Nix.

Professor Thierry’s chrome-gray eyes narrowed onto her in suspicion, and he pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “I hope I was not interrupting any kind of inappropriate request for extra credit.”

Nix sucked in a breath. He just implied she was trying to seduce Professor Bowen for a better grade. After she had helped rub his back when Professor Thierry had his painful episode in class the other day.

Nix snapped, “Why is this school full of assuming assholes?”

Professor Thierry’s slate-colored eyebrows rose well above the frames of his glasses. Maybe other students tried to seduce him because he was alluringly handsome, but to imply she wanted to seduce Professor Bowen—who, no offense to him, was an old man—was rude as hell.

Professor Bowen nodded at Nix’s words and told Thierry, “That was very asshole-like of you.”

Nix gasped out a surprised laugh at her potion professor’s agreement.

“Yes, well, you are alone with her, the rest of the class gone.”

“And yet you implied the young woman at a physical disadvantage would be the nefarious one,” Nix said.

Thierry blinked those beautiful silver eyes at her. She liked it when her words surprised him. Know-it-all jerk .

“Your elixir is in its usual spot on my shelf, étienne,” Professor Bowen told him. “As always. Feel free to grab it.”

étienne Thierry swiftly strode to the shelf beside where Nix stood. “Why is her hair wet?” he asked through a frown.

“ Wow , a question before an assumption?” Nix asked in a dramatic tone.

His frown twisted into a glare. “Never mind. I do not care.”

“Nix had a run-in with another student.”

“Not surprising,” Professor Thierry said, nodding.

As if she were a trouble student.

“She appears to be the victim of a hex, but we will know more with some research.”

Nix threw a betrayed expression in Professor Bowen’s direction. Had he not just said he wouldn’t tell anyone? Maybe he meant about the unknown-winged-species what is she issue.

“Hex?” Thierry paused in pocketing his glass vial of elixir. It was the same kind of vial that Nix accidentally ruined when she ran into him the day before.

“Like you care,” Nix said and turned to Professor Bowen. “I will see you tomorrow. Thank you, professor.”

“Of course,” he said warmly.

Nix swerved around étienne, aka Professor Jerk Thierry, making sure not to touch him as she left the classroom.

The second she rounded the end of the hallway, strong, warm arms shot around her and yanked her to the side.